Ah.....are we going to talk about change again? Yes, we are, haha. In the words of Bob Proctor, a favourite author of mine, he said; we are either progressing or stagnant in life. So if the word; change is too BIG or daunting as if you need a complete makeover, consider replacing it with progress instead. After all, we had said that hundreds and thousands of times when we are in school. "We the citizens of Singapore...........so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation." Sounds familiar?

Since I had my shoulder injury years back, I had fallen drastically on my physical strength training for fear of aggravating the pain. It was, each time I try to exert the muscles around it and it is frustrating that I can't do much and felt helpless.....I had many sleepless night as rotating the arm would hurt so bad that it wakes me up. (maybe that explains the dark eye circle, haha)Nearly giving up, I was feeling depressed and decided to turn to God for help. (Forgive me for not seeking YOU first, LORD) I asked him to release the pain and let me regain my strength and confidence once more. Nothing miraculous happen over the weeks, the pain still exist, the sleep was horrible and the days were muddled through...........

Then, one day my daughter wanted me to paint with her. Honestly, I was reluctant as I dislike drawing when I was young. But it was something that I had promised her and she was looking forward to it. So I said OK and this was what I painted. It came to me instantly, as if God knew that is what I need now!

Shortly, thereafter, I got my son to draw up this calendar for me. See attached drawing. The 2nd drawing is an ordinary 2 months time line that I set for myself to get started with my training again. It was not helpful when I kept thinking how strong I was in the past when I can hit the gym to lift the weights and so on and so forth. I had to start from scratch, I know and the sooner the better.

I started on 16 Aug 2016 where you could see a number, 6 was written on it. That was the number of chin-ups I could do. On some days, I added in my own run which I had been doing regularly, 3 - 5km run depending on time availability. 2 weeks later, I am still at 7 chin-ups and I was feeling a little frustrated how slow the progress had been. Then end of the month, 31 Aug 2016, I hit 8. That was a marked improvement for me.

I noticed once a new number register in my mind, it becomes the minimum I had to do and 7 or 6 became the past as I looked back at this calendar. Of course, the words of God, written by my son is a constant motivation. Matthews 19.26 - Nothing is impossible for God and Mark 9.23 - Nothing is impossible to Him who believes.

Last Sunday, 10 Sept 2016, I breakthrough with 9 chin ups and now 8 , 7 and 6 are behind - the past and no longer a limitation that I used to had and fear of reaching. My action and achievement by way of my records are evidence that it is possible and do-able.

Guess what, the next number will be ?Yeah, a full 10 and that would be another milestone that I love to hit it. The problem I realised that we get ourselves trapped are our very own thoughts. We not only compare with others but also our very own past performance, assuming if we had done it before ,then now should be easy and achievable. Yes and No depending on the context.

The 10,000 hours training that each person put behind his interest, be it a physical goal or financial one is crucial. This two month tracking progress may seem slow and way too easy for some but it fits my current lifestyle and I like the progress, slow and steady without hurting my shoulders too much.

God has a wonderful way of giving us what we want. He arranged for my daughter to get me to draw which I had not done in decades, less to mention holding a paint brush. As I saw her happily painting away, I thought what should I paint and my gut feeling told me this word. And then the next thing was this calendar I get my son to do for me. He loves to cross out each day of the month on the hard calendars we had in the house. And an idea just came to me, model the same thing on a piece of paper and each time I finished a physical task, I would cross it off.

Also, each night I shared my happy moments with him, how happy Daddy is by achieving this baby step one day at a time. As a father, I think it is more important to walk the talk than to give him theories on how to be resilient in the midst of adversity.

Friends, if you are going through some challenges right now, do as I had done. Baby steps, giant leaps one day at a time. Do not underestimate the power of accumulation but it has still to start from day one. Make today your day one and soon you will be excited to share your progress with your family member and others as well.

To expect others to come forth and help us or the external situation to first improve without making a radical shift in our attitude is the works of an insane person who unconsciously repeat the same steps but expecting a different result.

Acts 3.19 - Repent so that your sins can be wiped away..................

This is also one of my favourite verse but I too had to apply in my own life, experiencing the mighty power of God so that my testimonial are not hearsay but truly experienced.

Repent in the dictionary has too many negative connotations from feeling remorseful to being regretful of one's act. Wouldn't that act itself (feeling remorseful) magnify the problems you had on hand; i.e. making it bigger and worse than before?

According to the Strong Concordance, the word; repent means change of mind, change the inner man (accept the will of God). So simply, God say I am here so that you can have abundance and prosperity..... John 10.10. Now, we know God's words cannot be revoked, he kept his promises and thus it is up to us to change our mind, to shift our paradigm from looking at the external situation (shoulder pain) and forgotten the teachings of God. And that is to have faith and believe in his words. Now faith is the assurance of things hope for, evidence of things not seen.

In our mortal world, we were "educated" or brainwashed to only accept what we can see (visual sense) as facts before we can believe something. For example, if you say you are financially rich, then you jolly well dress up, live in a big house or drive a flashy car. We all "learn" to judge by what we see. But God see our hearts and not by what we have - our circumstances. We find it difficult to believe in something unless we can see it . Money, house, car are what we can see , then our brain begin to believe.

God say to do the reverse, first to believe than you will see. John 11.40 - Did I not tell you if you believe, you would see the Glory of God? And Matthew 21.22 - If you believe, you will receive whatever you request for in prayer.

Meditate on these words (a strong reminder for myself as well). It is the reverse of what the mortal world is teaching out there - out of sight, out of mind but rather God's way - out of mind, out of sight.